This felted iPhone cover is one of the things I made with the yarn I bought in Helsinki. Instead of the traditional souvenir, I thought I’d buy wool and make my own. I already made wrist-warmers from wool I bought from Lil Weasel in Paris. This wool is called Huopanen by Novita. I bought it at A store in Helsinki. It’s felting wool. It’s a super-bulky plied texture, suitable for 8-10 mm needlesIt was fairly easy to knit up but I wasn’t sure how it was going to felt and shrink.

It didn’t occur to me until yesterday to look Novita up on Ravelry. I learned that Huopanen has about 40% shrinkage done in a 40 degree celcius wash cycle. My machine (in Japan) only does cold water so I washed it with some towels to make it matt-up a bit more.

When I started, I wasn’t sure what kind of decoration I was going to do. I just decided to start and see what happens. I made a piece 38 stitches wide, about 40 rows high and then sewed it up. Pre-felting, the fabric extended 2 cm above my iPhone. Post-felting, it came up 1 cm short. That’s not such a big problem as this is only a proto-type. I fully expected to have to do it more than once. Still, it would have been nice for it to work, first thing.

So even though it was small, I decided to make the prototype anyway. The design I decided on was Estello. Estello is a character I created for photography and designs. Estello has his own blog and even a Facebook page. Please like or follow Estello. Estello always likes likes.

One of my friends said he likes my design sketches as much as he likes my products so I thought I’d post my brainstorming this time. I wanted to do something French-themed even though this wool in from Finland. I sketched out an Eiffel Tower but I couldn’t needle felt it at this size in a way I liked. Somehow the shape reminded me of an umbrella, and it did rain quite a bit on our trip. So umbrella time! I like the idea of the umbrella and the cover being cloudy and revealing a sun on the inside. I still like Estello in the hat and shirt. Maybe another project.

For Estello, I used felting wool I already had (yay for stashbusting!) and needlefelted the Estello design. I hand-painted the fabric. I’m not sure if I like the painting. I prefer the cloud to the sun.

I tried this clip first. I couldn’t do the leather stitching nicely. It’s my first time to do leather. This clip is heavy and looks icky. I got it in the hardware section. I don’t know what it’s called. I took it off and tried again.

This time I found a flat-ish, light carabiner clip. My stitching was better this time. It looks better but the balance is still off. It’s because the fabric is too, low and not at the top of the phone. I compensated by making the cloud cover more of the phone rather than just being a flip over the top.

Solutions For Next Time:
Make the fabric longer and a couple stitches tighter.
Place the clip on the top of the coverI upgraded to iPhone 5 so now I have a design problem. The earphone jack is at the bottom not the top as I designed.

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